Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Hey everyone. I have a quick post for you today. I wanted to share a birthday card I made for my wonderful sister-in-law, using scraps I had lying on my table after the previous project. I had made a shadow box using Graphic 45's Secret Garden collection, so all of these bits and pieces were laying there waiting to be utilized.

I just had a bit of this paper left, just enough to fit across the top of the card, but not enough to fit vertically. So, I found some blue CS to be the card base, and fussy cut the top portion of the scrap I had. I glued it down across the top, I was beginning to feel like I was underneath some shade trees in a garden. Now I wanted the bottom portion to look like a fenced in area, so I cut the border from one piece and the gate from another section, and glued them down, leaving the top free of glue, forming a pocket to insert my tags, as shown in photo 2. I fussy cut a butterfly, "Secret", and "Garden", from another piece and glued them down on each side of the gate. The butterfly ended up in the flowers. I added some beautiful rumple ribbon from Love Bug Creations to the tags, and voila, simple but beautiful card. Not a scrap went to waste.

Photo 1 (card front without tags inserted)

Photo 2 (card front with tags inserted)

So, what do you have laying around on your desk right now? It is amazing what you can create when you are limited by what you see in front of you. I think this turned out pretty well, and my sister-in-law loved it. I hope you enjoyed it, too.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you will come back often. You never know what I will be up to next.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Hello everyone, and welcome back. I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.

Barbara here, and I have a few tips to share with you that I learned along the way while making my project earlier this month. This is a picture of what I made in my earlier post this month. If you missed it, you can click here to see how I made it.

The basket of flowers is all made using Creative Paperclay®. As you can see, there were lots of tiny bits and pieces to mold and air dry. So, my first tip is this:

1) Get a ridged plate, like a microwave bacon cooker, from the dollar store, and place a scrap piece of screen wire on top to dry your clay on. It works fabulously because this allows air to circulate beneath the clay, as well as on the top.

I also found that these Stampin' Up trays, used to hold alphabet stamps, have ridges that will hold the screen wire up off the bottom, as well. The lid closes and will keep the dust off.

2) When you want to work on a piece of Paperclay® that you now need to trim with your craft knife, lay it on a piece of white cardstock. This will allow you to easily rotate the piece while you work on it without handling it, which could possibly cause it to stretch out of shape. You can also leave it to dry on the paper and then you can easily move it from your workspace. This was invaluable to me when I was cutting out the basket I had made.

3) I also found that, while painting my Paperclay® pieces, if I want to dilute my acrylic paints with water, the water would re-wet the Paperclay®, causing it to lose some of its definition. However, using an acrylic glazing medium (instead of water) allowed me more time to color my flowers without wetting the Paperclay®. The glazing medium also made the acrylic paint more translucent and allowed me more time to play with mixing my colors, again without re-wetting the Paperclay®.

I hope you enjoyed my tips this month, and that you will be able to utilize them in your own projects, perhaps making it easier and more fun to create something using this fabulous product. I hope you will also take a minute to visit the Creative Paperclay® online store, as well as come back to the blog for more inspiration, tips and techniques from the wonderful Creative Paperclay® designers.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Hey there Robin's Nest fans, and welcome back to the blog. The featured collection this month is The Robin's Nest Hot Flame Line papers. These are HOT, HOT, HOT! and are on sale this month for a COOL 20% off. They are so fun and very masculine, but if you've been following along this month, you will see that our design team has made them more feminine, too. Needless to say, they are very versatile and you are limited only by your imagination.

By the way, take a look at the new Special Delivery Baby Boy and Baby Girl kits. They are so cute and charming, you will want both kits. I have made two more cards from the Baby Boy kit to share with you today.

We are also very pleased to be teaming up with Love Bug Creations this month, using some of their scrumptious rumple ribbons in our creations. These ribbons are so fun to use, and the colors are absolutely gorgeous!

The first card I want to share with you today is using some of the new Hot Flame Line collection papers. This card is made especially for a graduate, but you could certainly use it for any kind of special achievement that you would like to acknowledge.

Adhere a piece of The Robin's Nest Chili CS (4-1/2" x 5-1/2") to a piece of chipboard the same size. Die cut vintage fan from the chili cs/chipboard piece. This is easier than trying to match up two separately cut fan images.

Place metal gear over center of fan, mark/punch hole and insert three small pieces of rumple ribbon through the hole, then insert the brad through the gear and the hole. Arrange the ribbons to look like they are being blown by the fan in the same direction as the flames on the CS.

Adhere vintage fan to card front. These are the three colors of rumple ribbon I used for the fan.

I found this quotation online, which was my inspiration for this card. I printed it out onto a piece of parchment paper, trimmed it to 4-1/2" x 6" to fit inside my card.

Doesn't this make the perfect graduation card? I am so thrilled with how the Hot Flame Line papers work so well with this quotation. The internet is a wonderful thing. You can glean a lot of inspiration from its abundance of information.

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Next, I made a few cards using the Special Delivery Baby Boy kit. Here is a picture of the fun things included in the kit.

I made two more cards from this one kit. One card is for a baby boy, of course, but I am going to show you how I made a similar card for a baby girl, still using this same kit.

Cut two 4" doilies in half, placing each half beneath the "bundle of joy" sticker. Trim off excess. Adhere to center of card, as shown. Add pink neon mini dew drops in each corner, as shown.

Make two tiny vintage roses by dropping a blob of Helmar 450 glue onto your craft sheet, and scrunch up a 6"-8" piece of Purple-dise rumple ribbon. Leave to dry. Peel off of craft sheet and adhere to both sides of sticker with a tiny piece of Green Leaves rumple ribbon beneath each rose.

If you have to mail your card and do not want the excess dimension from the roses, here is the card without them. It looks good, but I have to say, I really like the one with the roses.

Well, there you have it. A baby boy AND a baby girl card, all from the same kit. Isn't that fun?

I hope you enjoyed my projects today, and that I have inspired you to look at things differently. It never ceases to amaze me when I can change things up with a bit of inks, a different embellishment, or even a dew drop color. So, please visit both The Robin's Nest and Love Bug Creations online stores for more fun products to make your mouth water, and check out the blog for more inspiration from the design team.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog. Today, I am re-applying for The Robin's Nest Cards Only design team. I have been with Robin's Nest for a year now, and I absolutely love working for them, and I especially love all of their products. So, here is my project for consideration.

In my last post earlier this month, I used this same paper to make a very masculine, hot flames card. You can check it out by clicking here. I want to show you how to change up your papers a bit, using mixed media techniques. So, how did I get from the paper on the left to the tag on the right? I'm going to show you.

Trim paper into a tag shape. My tag measures 3-3/8" x 5-7/8". To make the top angled edges even, cut off one side, then reverse the piece you cut off and use it to angle the opposite side. This is an easy way to ensure you get an equal angle cut.

Attach Sunset and Ocean View rumple ribbons through eyelet at top of tag. Add two strips of tissue tape along the bottom.

Add two clear dew drops from the Getaway dew drop collection to the car headlights.

Voila! Your finished tag.

Now, the really fun thing about tags is that they can serve several purposes. They can, of course, just be a tag. But better yet, they can also be the focal point when placed on the front of your card, as shown above. Add a sentiment, and you have a really fun card to give.

Make a die cut hinge from scrap card stock. Tape metal die over opening. Align card stock opening over sticker image and tape in place. Run through die cut machine.

In the picture below, you can see that I needed to offset the cut a bit so I could include the airplane image without cutting it off. Die cut hinges are very important to accomplish this accurately.

To mat the sticker, I cut a second piece of plain tan cardstock using the same size die. Trim as shown in photo below.

Layer behind sticker, as shown.

Finished layered sticker. Distress edges with gathered twig ink.

Close-up of sticker. I added glacier dew drops to diamond border, rusty hinge distress stickles to star shape from the Special Boy Embellies, and a piece of sunset rumple ribbon. I also adhered a large clear dew drop over the "it's a boy" sticker, trimmed excess, and adhered that, as shown.

This is the third card I have made from this kit, and I still have a ton of product to make many more. As a matter of fact, I hope you will come back tomorrow to view my next post for The Robin's Nest blog, where I will have yet another project for you using the flame collection, as well as a few more cards using this really cute kit.

I hope you have enjoyed my projects and will visit often. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Hello Sin City Stampers, and welcome back to our blog. Barbara here today with Part 2 of my mini album project. In case you have not heard, Sin City Scraps is now Sin City Stamps. In addition to the new name, I hope you will check out the new stamps, stamp plates, and other fabulous products they sell in their online store. You will love what they have to offer.

Just a reminder, too, to mark your calendars for a fun Clowning Around With Sin City Stamps Blog Hopon 8 June. If you love the Circus, you will love this hop. If you love inspiration, you will love this hop. If you love giveaways, you will really love this hop. Each blog will be giving away a stamp set of your choice to one lucky, randomly chosen winner. So be sure to come back for this special event.

My project today is the second part of my mixed media mini album (shown below), which was posted here on 2 May. If you missed it, you can click hereto see Part 1.

I promised I would show you some of the things I planned to embellish the inside pockets and tags. In the picture below, the pockets, tags and envelopes are plain and unadorned.

Looks much better, right? And so much fun to make.

First, let's work on the tags inside the front and back cover pockets. I just acquired some of the new Distress Paints, so I wanted to give them a try. I used bundled sage and broken china to marbleize my two manila tags located inside the front and back covers. Simply swipe the dabber across the tag, then make two puddles on your craft sheet, spritz both the tag and puddles with water, and let the colors run. Swipe the wet tag through the puddles to marbleize even more.

Here are my results:

Next, stamp images from Mannequin Tags 2, Clocks and Birds, and Metal Madness plates, using black archival ink. I sponged a little wild honey distress ink around the edges. It gave it a bit of a greenish effect, which I liked very much. I tied some green leaf rumple ribbon through the holes.

Similar techniques were used on three black library pockets, i.e., puddle bundled sage and broken china distress paints on craft sheet, spritz with water, swipe pockets through wet paint to marbleize them.

Sponge on salty ocean and peeled paint distress inks after paint has dried. (Note: Applying the paint first allowed the inks to show against the black paper.)

I colored three more black library pockets with a color combo of mustard seed, peeled paint, and fired brick distress paints.

Stamp background image from Metal Madness onto library pockets with black archival ink. Edge with black soot distress ink. Now wait for it. Magic is about to happen. At first glance, what appeared to be a painted, splotchy mess is now a fabulous background. That is the magic of stamps!

My tip for stamping a larger stamp onto a smaller piece of paper is to lay your stamp flat on your desk, ink it up, and lay your paper face down on top of the stamp. Burnish with your fingers, a brayer, or a bone folder. Use whatever works for you.

I cut six tag shapes 3" x 4" to fit inside the library pockets, then trimmed the top corners with corner edger scissors. I left them blank so I can add bits and pieces of ephemera, quotations, and anything else I want to put on them.

Finally, let's work on the ivory coin envelopes. I am going to use a technique that I am going to call "fragment stamping", because I am only going to use portions (or fragments) of my stamps to make an amazing background. Now, this is fun! I admit I had to overcome some of my inhibitions, but the key to this kind of stamping is imperfection. What? Are you kidding? Imperfection from a perfectionist? Yep, and I have got to admit, I had a blast.

On the five individual coin envelopes, I stamped portions of images from the Metal Madness, Clockworks Inspired by Terri Sproul, and Love of Butterflies, to make these fun backgrounds. I used black archival ink so my stamping would not run for the next step. I heat set the ink with my heat gun. Then I used two color combos of Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists, for each coin envelope. One color combo is Patina, Key Lime, English Ivy.

The second color combo is Vintage Pink, Indian Corn, and Chocolate Covered Cherries. Allow to dry.

This is my third design using the Clockworks Inspired by Terri Sproul set.

I made this cute binder closure, inspired by Marion Smith, using some Tim Holtz Idea-ology bits and pieces, and some tiny lock and key charms.

I attached the swivel clasp end to the back cover after inserting an eyelet with my crop-a-dile.

Inside cover tags.

Library pocket pages (were black).

Coin envelopes (were ivory).

Finished pages inside book.

Close up of book closure.

My plan for this little mini book is to keep tiny keepsakes and memorabilia, favorite quotations, as well as any profound thoughts I might want to remember. What will you keep in yours?

I hope you enjoyed Part 2 of my project today, and that I have inspired you to play with your stamps and mixed media in many different ways. So be sure to stop by Sin City Stamps and check out their new stamp plates, as well as visiting the blog for tons of inspiration from the design team. And don't forget the Clowning Around blog hop coming here on 8 June. It is sure to be as much fun as a three-ring circus!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a wonderful weekend filled with stamping fun!Barbara